It’s official, the NIU Soccer team did not lose a regular season game at Huskie Soccer Field.

The Huskies have taken full advantage of a new grass field this season and the latest victim on the turf was Northwestern University on Wednesday. NIU recorded a 1-0 shutout preserving its 6-0-0 record at home. The win put NIU’s overall record at 8-2-1 as the Huskies head out on the road for the remainder of their regular season contests.

NIU came out firing in the first half of the Northwestern game with two early shots by Karsten Roy and Per Ekholdt hitting the crossbar. Seconds later Tony Adolfs added more pressure, but his shot went wide.

With 10:09 elapsed, John Lechner centered a perfect pass to a rushing Todd Moore and Moore blasted a shot to the left of Northwestern goalie George Kokodynski that put the Huskies in front 1-0.

There would be no icing on the cake for the Huskies as they were shut out the rest of the way. NIU Coach Willy Roy called the game a “fight for their lives.”

“In the first half, we played like champs—world-beaters,” Roy said. “In the second, we played like chumps.”

The Wildcats seemed to turn up the intensity in the second after a lack-luster performance in the first.

“This is one of our worst games all season,” a frustrated Northwestern coach Michael Kunert said. “NIU deserved to win. We fell asleep in the first half and we just have no presence of the ball in front of the goal, so we can’t score.”

This was especially true with 14:09 left in the game as Northwestern had NIU goalie Markus Roy screened out of the net but were still unable to tie the game as the Wildcat shot went wide and their coach went nuts.

“I’m screaming now more than I ever have,” Kunert said. “Those are exactly the kinds of things that I’m talking about. We’re missing chances that we have and we usually don’t have that many.”

Roy felt that his team missed ample opportunities also.

“We should’ve been up 3-0 after the first twenty minutes,” Roy said. “We had three excellent opportunities to score, but we came up short. We need more of a killer instinct.”

Despite this effort though, the Huskies still ended up with a win which was a satisfying thought to Roy.

“It’s great when you get a new facility and go undefeated in your first season,” Roy said. “The grounds crew, Tom Anderson and his guys, did a fantastic job. They must have put some of that Kentucky Blue Grass out there because we got the bounces.”

Roy continued to say his team will be ready for this weekend’s Governor’s Cup Championship as NIU goes into the tournament as the defending champs and its first match is Eastern Illinois University on Saturday at 3:00 p.m.

“We will be better,” Roy said. “Eastern has a very good club, ranked right behind us in the region, so we know what’s coming up. Our guys are going to be fine.”